Also, I now fully subscribe to the "exercise won't help you lose weight" idea. When I'm exercising, I'm hungrier, I eat more, and I eat less healthy foods because "hey, I'm burning it off!" which offsets the exercising. If you want to lose weight, stop exercising and focus on eating a low-calorie diet until you get down to the weight you want, THEN start exercising so you're all healthy and stuff.

The double dipping thing, they covered that on Mythbusters. Turns out there's way more bacteria already resident in the food than would ever be transferred by putting a mouthful in your mouth and spitting it out into the bowl, let alone from double-dipping.

I love my dog kisses. I have the coolest, smartest most awesomest giant yellow Lab ever. He's way more fun than most people I know and he has a herd of pink stuffed-animal sheep that he carries around. He's the smilingist dog ever and he's my goofy boy. MURPHY! Or, Mr. Murffles if you're not into the whole brevity thing. Plus, he sleeps in my spot on the bed and keeps it warm for me if I'm not around.

Setting aside the acidic effect on your stomach lining, drinking too much coffee is risky for your health. How much coffee is too much? Studies say seven cups a day can cause anxiety, irritability, sleeplessness and even hallucinations. Drinking 10 or 11 cups daily slightly raises your risk of heart failure. Yet some people carry genetic mutations that increase their metabolism of caffeine. Others have a genetic quirk that slows the breakdown of the drug. Thus, how quickly you metabolize coffee determines your health risk.

Is there a test to find out if I have a mutation officially? I want to know if I can just mainline coffee all day or not once and for all

Pretty much this. Scientists just report facts they discover with studies. Usually those facts are tiny correlations between things that should have no bearing on anything outside associated clinical research grant issuance and future study proposals.

The newspaper takes it and makes it sound like a tiny, possibly flawed study that found a .01% difference than what was hypothesize means that the past 3500 years of written history should be discarded immediately and you should pull a President Madagascar and shut down everything.

RedPhoenix122:The double dipping thing, they covered that on Mythbusters. Turns out there's way more bacteria already resident in the food than would ever be transferred by putting a mouthful in your mouth and spitting it out into the bowl, let alone from double-dipping.

Since when was "number of bacteria" in any way relevant to how harmful something is?

But yes, if you have some contact-transmissible disease virus or bacteria, you'll generally know because you'll either be sick or recently have been. If you haven't been sick in a while, double-dipping is unlikely to cause you anything dire.

Note that "unlikely" isn't "guaranteed". Mononucleosis is called "the kissing disease" for a reason, saliva can spread it and you tend to be infectious before you exhibit symptoms. So there certainly are diseases you can spread through enough double-dipping, they're just of low likelihood, generally speaking.

//Either you missed some major component of the demonstration or the Mythbusters managed to fail biology forever in the episode you saw, though. That's what happens when the closest your team has to a scientist is a structural engineer, I guess.

Setting aside the acidic effect on your stomach lining, drinking too much coffee is risky for your health. How much coffee is too much? Studies say seven cups a day can cause anxiety, irritability, sleeplessness and even hallucinations. Drinking 10 or 11 cups daily slightly raises your risk of heart failure. Yet some people carry genetic mutations that increase their metabolism of caffeine. Others have a genetic quirk that slows the breakdown of the drug. Thus, how quickly you metabolize coffee determines your health risk.

Is there a test to find out if I have a mutation officially? I want to know if I can just mainline coffee all day or not once and for all

I wish that was a test we could pick up at the Rite Aid or Walgreens or something. I drink coffee nonstop. If I'm awake, I'm drinking coffee, with a big glass of ice water when I finish one pot and am waiting for the next one to brew. This is probably why I do not sleep, just take a few naps.

/got so excited when my favorite pumpkin spice coffee was available again, I bought two cases//been drinking it since 1:00 am, when I woke up from my latest nap///wanna race?

shower_in_my_socks:Also, I now fully subscribe to the "exercise won't help you lose weight" idea. When I'm exercising, I'm hungrier, I eat more, and I eat less healthy foods because "hey, I'm burning it off!" which offsets the exercising. If you want to lose weight, stop exercising and focus on eating a low-calorie diet until you get down to the weight you want, THEN start exercising so you're all healthy and stuff.

I had a similar experience. Last summer I started a pretty intense work out regimen with weights and cardio but didn't really monitor my food intake. I ate pretty healthy, but didn't regulate portion size or number of snacks. I got strong as an ox but my weight just shot through the roof because I was perpetually hungry.

Cloudchaser Sakonige the Red Wolf:I'm calling bullshiat on #3 because although eating less got me down to 210 from 255, I was stuck at 210 for years until I started exercising daily and dropped 30 pounds in 6 months.

Ook:Cloudchaser Sakonige the Red Wolf: I'm calling bullshiat on #3 because although eating less got me down to 210 from 255, I was stuck at 210 for years until I started exercising daily and dropped 30 pounds in 6 months.

anecdata: more fun than real science!

But nowhere near as much fun as the psuedoscience listed in the article

shower_in_my_socks:Also, I now fully subscribe to the "exercise won't help you lose weight" idea. When I'm exercising, I'm hungrier, I eat more, and I eat less healthy foods because "hey, I'm burning it off!" which offsets the exercising. If you want to lose weight, stop exercising and focus on eating a low-calorie diet until you get down to the weight you want, THEN start exercising so you're all healthy and stuff.

Don't blame exercise because you reach for a Snickers bar instead of a protein-rich salad or something like that after a workout. Yes, the diet is the main component in weight loss, and yes, because you exercise your body will want more calories, but it's up to you to eat healthy food, or enjoy treats in moderation.

markfara:11. If you swallow your gum instead of spitting it out, it will stay in your stomach for seven years.

Actually, scientists have since determined that the "7 Year" myth was a lie. Sadly, the anti-gum companies made this up and perpetuated the untruth for generations. Seven years? More like, seven cycles.

See, gum is like rain. It is always around but, sometimes, cloud-like.

For instance:

The last chair you sat upon may or may not have had gum-function. You don't know because you never thought of it. You just sat down. You selfish bastard.

The chair you are on now has gum-ties. Yes. It is tied to the Gum world. Sure, it would like to get away from the table but, the Gum is there. It prohibits your action of removing the chair from its presence. And, you want to lick that under-table Gum, don't you?

shower_in_my_socks:Also, I now fully subscribe to the "exercise won't help you lose weight" idea. When I'm exercising, I'm hungrier, I eat more, and I eat less healthy foods because "hey, I'm burning it off!" which offsets the exercising. If you want to lose weight, stop exercising and focus on eating a low-calorie diet until you get down to the weight you want, THEN start exercising so you're all healthy and stuff.

If you want to lose weight, come over to my house. We will fark for days. Then, go out for a steak dinner with all the fixins so you will feel fat again. We will get to humpin once again and then and only then will you be slim.

I will fark you beautiful. The others are just farkers. Pass the butter.

And if you plan on baking that cookie dough and downing the delectable calories, you can always spend a few extra minutes later at the gym, right? Wrong. Two recent studies put a damper on the theory that exercise will help you lose weight. A person's basal metabolic rate, which determines how many calories get burned daily, will drop as you lose weight, even with daily exercise, the research showed.

Shoot the idiot who came up with this one. Nobody said you could exercize your way down to ZERO. Metabolic change TRAILS exercise because...TA-DA! you are SMALLER, and your body does not have to work as hard to pump crap around your tub of goo body.

markfara:11. If you swallow your gum instead of spitting it out, it will stay in your stomach for seven years.

I have had more than one vegetarian tell me that it takes seven years to completely digest meat. Sometimes it's only bacon that these twits claim takes seven years to digest. I always counter that argument with "then why am I not dead? I go through a pound of bacon a week, sometimes more, and have for over 20 years. 52 weeks x 1# bacon = 52#/year x 7 years = 364#, just in bacon. I don't even weigh half that."

Notice I left out the common sense observation that having so much bacon in your digestive system stacking up would kill you with an intestinal blockage long before you hit the seven year mark. If someone wants to be a veg, fine, go for it. But lying for any pet cause just weakens destroys their credibility in all areas, including the one(s) they hold near and dear.

SevenizGud:A person's basal metabolic rate, which determines how many calories get burned daily

And all this time, I thought how many calories you burned was basal metabolism PLUS however much you did over basal metabolism. I had no idea that a work-out added a total of ZERO calories burned over basal.

The more you know....

/the more you realize that journalists are the stupidest people on the planet

Yeah probably. I'm 6'2", I got up to 190lbs before I decided I was far too fat and needed to lose weight. I'm down to 170lbs at the moment but I'm still fat. It doesn't help that all my excess weight is stored in a rotund belly which exacerbates the appearance of being fat, but while technically my bmi is normal weight, there's no way i'm normal, unless we redefine it to spare the feelings of fat people, I'm definitely fat. Just not as fat as 400lbs tubsy over there.